By Mark Engler and Paul Engler. Nation Books, 2016. 368 pages. $26.99/hardcover; $15.99/eBook. [Buy on Quakerbooks] Toward the end of This Is an Uprising: How Nonviolent Revolt Is Shaping the Twenty-First Century, coauthors Mark and Paul Engler argue that Quakers have often acted powerfully as a “prophetic minority” in U.S. history—sometimes to great practical effect. According […]

Steve Chase is a member of Putney (Vt.) Meeting and the author of Letters to a Fellow Seeker: A Short Introduction to the Quaker Way and Revelation and Revolution: Answering the Call to Radical Faithfulness.

By Carol Anderson. Bloomsbury, 2016. 256 pages. $26/hardcover; $17/paperback; $18.99/eBook. [Buy on Quakerbooks] A lot of attention has been given to black rage, which we have seen most recently in street demonstrations following police shootings of unarmed black men. Historian Carol Anderson suggests that these demonstrations are the fire, while acts coming from white rage are […]

Patience Schenck is a member of Annapolis (Md.) Meeting and the Annapolis Human Relations Commission.

Edited by Jesmyn Ward. Scribner, 2016. 240 pages. $25/hardcover; $16/paperback; $12.99/eBook. [Buy on Quakerbooks] In his book The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin writes, “I accuse my country and my countrymen, and for which neither I nor time nor history will ever forgive them, that they have destroyed and are destroying hundreds of thousands of lives […]

Greg Williams is a member of Beacon Hill Meeting in Boston, Mass. (New England Yearly Meeting). Greg is working around in-reach and outreach relating to racial justice concerns. He recently received a Legacy Grant from NEYM to address this concern.

By Shane Claiborne. HarperOne, 2016. 320 pages. $17.99/paperback; $12.99/eBook. [Buy on Quakerbooks] “There is a contagion of violence in the world; it’s spreading like a disease. But grace is also contagious.” —Shane Claiborne Grace is that “absurd gift,” unbidden, upon me suddenly, an overwhelming desire to extend generosity and kindness to everyone, forcing me to […]

Bill and Pat Mueller are members of St. Lawrence Valley Meeting in Ottawa (Canadian Yearly Meeting). They edit a monthly inspirational “Inlook-Outlook Letter,” part of their meeting’s prison ministry. Bill can be contacted at [email protected].

By D. L. Mayfield. HarperOne, 2016. 224 pages. $14.99/paperback; $9.99/eBook. [Buy on Quakerbooks] I grew up an Evangelical Friend. Despite sitting through countless missionary presentations, I, unlike D. L. Mayfield, had no interest in becoming a missionary. In fact, when everyone else in the congregation was singing “I’ll go where you want me to go, […]

Brent Bill is Friends General Conference’s associate secretary for communications, publications, and outreach. A member of West Newton (Ind.) Meeting, his newest book is Holy Silence: The Gift of Quaker Spirituality (Second Edition).

By Harvey Cox. Harvard University Press, 2016. 278 pages. $26.95/hardcover or eBook. [Buy on QuakerBooks] The ancient view of the world as populated by mysterious forces that need appeasement for their fickle moods—the gods—often makes little sense to me as a contemporary Westerner. Yet one such implacable, persistent, and nearly omnipresent force is alive and […]

Chris Mohr is a member of Green Street Meeting in Philadelphia, Pa., and is a trustee of Friends Publishing Corporation.

By Jeanne Lohmann. Fithian Press, 2016. 96 pages. $14/paperback. [Buy at QuakerBooks] This past summer I spent several very sweet afternoons sitting on a porch in Maine reading Grace Paley’s posthumously published collection of poems, Fidelity, to a dear friend whose eyesight has been troubling her. The poems are frank, direct, and mostly about one’s […]

Michael S. Glaser is a professor Emeritus at St. Mary’s College of Maryland and served as Poet Laureate of Maryland from 2004 to 2009. Coeditor of The Collected Poems of Lucille Clifton, he offers poetry retreats at Kirkridge in Bangor, Pa. The next one will take place October 4–7.

By Timothy Sunderland. Self-published, 2016. 315 pages. $11.99/paperback; $3.99/eBook. A teenage couple visits a California abortion clinic in 1971. The result is not what they expect. Thirty-six years later they come together to deal with what happened. The power of the personal illuminates the story of middle-aged Gavin Oliver, a fundamentally generous businessman who uses alcohol to […]

By Lee Hull Moses. Westminster John Knox Press, 2016. 132 pages. $16/paperback; $13/eBook. [Buy at QuakerBooks] Moses, a minister, writes from the perspectives of minister, mother, wife, and ordinary person—or maybe “ordinary person with a deep concern about lifestyle, consumption, and disposal patterns.” She feels a weighty responsibility to take part in a huge cultural […]

By Brenda Bevan Remmes. Lake Union, 2016. 290 pages. $14.95/paperback; $5.99/eBook. [Buy at QuakerBooks] The Quaker Café series continues! Friends Journal reviewed the first in this series, the eponymous The Quaker Café, in the February 2015 issue. Friend Brenda Remmes gives us more tales in the life of a small North Carolina town and its […]